Threaded fasteners are well known in the art. While various threaded fasteners are known, in one such threaded fastener, the shape and pitch of the spiral threads cause large frictional forces to be present when a nut is moved into engagement with the threads. This causes the treaded portion to be self locking due to the large area of sliding contact between the threads of the threaded portion and the threads of the nut. Essentially, applying a torque to the nut allows the nut to turn, but no amount of axial load applied against the nut or the treaded portion will cause the nut to become loose.
The known threaded fasteners have various disadvantages. Due to the complex and bulky configuration of the heads of the prior art threaded fasteners, high pressure and slow speeds are required to seat the threaded fasteners. Known threaded fasteners also require heads with diameters larger than the diameter of the threaded portion. Consequently, during manufacturing, a large volume of scrap is generated to reduce the diameter of the thread portion from the diameter of the stock material required to manufacture the head. In addition, known threaded fasteners require teeth or similar projections to allow the head to be properly secured to and grip the surface of a mating member to which the threaded fastener is secured. This requires relatively sophisticated tooling to manufacture the head. Known threaded fasteners are also relatively heavy.
It would, therefore, be beneficial to provide a threaded fastener which is lean and lightweight which can be manufactured by stamping, machining or other known methods. It would also be beneficial to provide a threaded fastener which is easily manufactured and is easily assembled to a mating member or component using non-complex tools. The manufacture and use of the threaded fastener thereby resulting in the reduction of assembly time, reduction of weight of the threaded fastener and reduction of the weight of the final product.